Sexualization Of Women In Video Games

The work looking at the portrayals of men and women in video games, conducted by Dietz (1998) found that the most common depiction of women was their absence. This is in line with the findings of this study, since women accounted for only 32% (Table 1) of the characters observed in the sample. Despite this, female characters were physically objectified 9 times more than males (Table 1). Moreover, female characters were objectified in more ways; male characters were objectified by means of only tight clothing, whereas female characters were objectified through sexualized portrayal, exaggerated bust size, vulgar clothing, as well as tight clothing (Table 1).

The majority of female characters were dressed, so as to draw attention to their bodies,

That is, if children cannot buy these games, why is it important to study them in relation to gender socialization? It may be true that children cannot buy M rated games, however, access to video game covers is virtually unrestricted. A child in a store perusing the games aisle may not be able to buy Grand Theft Auto 5, but he/she can gawk at the covers. Furthermore, studying gender portrayals in media, such as video games, can provide an understanding of the sociocultural attitudes of gender that exist in society. The problem is not only men and women imitating that which they consume, but the media content itself. Media constructs are not independent of societal influence; people create media content. As such, the intrinsic values, beliefs, stereotypes, sociocultural ideologies held by people – here, game developers and game production companies – are reflected in the media content they

As such, one solution to the pervasive issue of sexualization in video games is to simply stop consuming them. If we stopped consuming media contents that contain hyper-sexualized images of women, in theory, they would cease to exist. This is not a viable solution, however, as media is deeply entrenched in our lives and sexualized images of women are not only seen in one media outlet. Magazines, TV show, commercials, movies, video games, internet media all show women in sexualized ways. That being said, the content of these media can be moderated. As mentioned earlier, access to images of the media – particularly, video game covers – is currently not regulated. As such, audiences for whom the content is rated inappropriate (by the ESRB, for example) are not shielded from the content. To mitigate this, censorship policies may be put in place. Namely, censorship models that require game cover designers to minimize the amount of sexually suggestive and objectifying